This is the continuation of the other rather full thread.
| so far items that have been brought up for discussion: |
|---|
| Atmas Impaler |
| Sword of the Divine |
| Executioners Calling |
| Ohmwrecker |
| Wits End |
| Zeke's Herald |
| Runaan's Hurricane |
| Sheen |
| Other topics also being discussed: |
|---|
| Grevious wounds |
| various build components |
| spell vamp |
Catch up on the discussion here
Ty for the new thread sir! I'll start monitoring this one as well. More than happy to talk about anything itemization related. It's been on my mind a lot recently, would love for more thoughts and input from folks.
Here's an item that hasn't been brought up yet: 
Right now it has a build path that is probably the third least-forgiving in the entire game. (Behind 
and 
). Removing Phage from the recipe basically meant that "you should not try to build this item" as you are missing out on all the excellent stats that mid-tier items provide.
IE and Dcap are still worthwhile because they provide some of the best damage bonuses once completed, and they also fit the proper niche of "I'm a really fed ADC/APC." Frozen mallet has neither. It is harder to build and has worse stats than 
. If you're going to make an item really hard to build, you should at least make it worthwhile once you finish it.
I see some discussion on spellvamp here and I'd like to discuss why it's not used more often/with more variety (maybe save our pony some difficulty).
AD and AP are different (duh). The main difference is in how they are used to deal damage. AD augments auto-attacks and is generally used to increase damage dealt over time (sustained DPS). AP augments abilities and is generally used to increase damage dealt very quickly (burst(. Of course exceptions exist (ryze, karthus, swain, zed, riven, talon etc.) but we'll assume for the moment that itemizations decisions are based on burst mages and ADC's not AD assassins and APC's.
What does this mean about lifesteal and spellvamp? It means that in general a champion who is buying lifesteal will be gaining a low amount of damage per hit over a great number of hits and therefore that lifesteal for them is relatively similar to a gradual heal. On the other hand, a champion who builds spellvamp gains a large amount of health over a short period of time and then does not gain more for a long period of time while their cooldowns reset. This is much less useful both for the caster (and thus why it is rarely built) and for game design (it encourages burst mages to engage to heal? are they supposed to die if they engage or not? will healing from 50% to 100% even matter if they don't kill their target?).
But what about the edge cases you might ask? this is why spellvamp items exist. Ryze/karthus/swain players who want to last longer can build these things as part of a slightly tankier mage build. But these champions don't need a bunch of variety in their spellvamp options (because there are so few of them and they all build the same basic path) and because building spellvamp already represents a unique choice of builds for this champion. On the other hand, an AD champion can build and use lifesteal as a small part of a build (because the lifesteal doesn't change their play pattern, they want to keep auto-attacking) so lifesteal items need some variety for the choice to be meaningful (thus why botrk, hydra, and BT all exist, while spellvamp is basically just WOTA for non-hybrid champions).
TLDR: lifesteal is a small part of a sustained AD DPS play pattern but spellvamp is a big change to the standard AP play pattern, so multiple lifesteal items need to exist but only one spellvamp item is okay, because it changes the way a build works just by having spellvamp while lifesteal would not)
Basically, FeralPony said Marksman/AD carry itemization to be one of the areas that are currently under view for improvements. So, in here, I want to present a few thoughts on that field.
What's an AD carry's point? Why do they have a place in a team
Three core aspects (CA):
How do current items fill in these core aspects?
The Gold Standard
: The quintessential carry item. Fulfills CA 2 (high AD for tower damage) and 3 (Safety through keeping HP up via Lifesteal) fully, while still being an asset to CA 1 (a ton of AD to fuel crits). And all at a reasonable price point.
: CA 1 - basically, this item is what leads to the really high sustained damage a carry can deal. Also, the AD are helpful for CA 2, but much less so than BT's AD - you pay a lot more gold for less damage to structures.
: Force multiplier. Complements both CA 1 (AS and Crit chance massively boost sustained damage) and 2 (AS helps taking down structures faster). Also, contributes to CA 3 by giving increased movement speed and the IUC effect.
: This item is supposed to be another centerpiece for CA 1, as it is supposed to counter heavy armor-stacking. However, as it stands, it doesn't do its job - or, rather it doesn't do its job correctly. Basically, due to everybody having base Armor, at some point, it is an item good against everyone, instead of merely screwing with resistance stacking.
The non-standard stuff
: A force-multiplier akin to PD. Gives slight AoE damage, which contributes to CA 2. Since open sieges rarely involve more than 1 or 2 AAs at a time, it can be better for that purpose than PD. Also, it synergizes well with the kiting playstyle carries need to do. However, for raw output (CA 1), it is inferior.
: Supposed to counter health-stacking (CA 1). Ok at that, too. Also, a big item for safety (CA 3), due to Lifesteal and the powerful active (slow, haste, damage, heal). AS is also an asset for sieging (CA 2). A decent alternative to BT for carries that value AS over raw AD.
: A good safety option (CA 3), due to the HP and two forms of MS. Synergizes well with ability-based carries, which are, by their very nature, more burst-oriented than AA-based carries. Also, good for sieging (CA 2) - as said before, that activity rarely involves more than 1 or 2 AAs at a time, and a Sheen proc is like a mini-crit on a tower. Only thing it doesn't do well is CA 1 - it trades a good deal of sustained damage for more burst.
: Rarely seen on carries. Few benefits for safety, and isn't effective against structures beyond the AD part, either. Also, since the passive lowers the enemy's Armor for everyone, not just yourself, it is a funny case of having good synergy with CA 1 - but only if one or two of the carry's teammates bring it.
: Interesting item. It is purposely weaker on ranged champions, but, apart from that, it brings a good mixture of stats for all three aspects - ArPen and Crit are good for CA1, AS and AD for CA 2, and MS and CdR for CA 3. Still, PD, Triforce and SS are superior in most situations and on most champions.
Is something going to be done about how good 
and are anytime soon, or are we gonna have to wait for pre-season 5? Right now, they're both strong and useful, even if no one build armor or magic resist, and I don't think that's how it should go.
Likewise, are we looking into lifesteal itemization? That's probably my least favorite thing about league items right now. All of the lifesteal items except for 
(Which is also a spellvamp item, and therefore is incredibly niche, even without also being a hybrid item; no wonder it's terrible!) have a reason for you to buy them even without the lifesteal; gives you a big chunk of AD, which I believe is the highest per slot unless you're fully stacking a 
, has that chasing/kiting/peeling active plus the tank shredding, and 
has additional burst plus waveclear, and then they get lifesteal on top of that. In comparison, if you're getting 
, you're getting it entirely for the spellvamp, and the rest is just gravy.
I'm still not sure why spellvamp is worse for the game than lifesteal, but even assuming it is, and do way too much. The only idea I've had is splitting up the items; can have one path that builds from the 
and includes the slowing active and another that builds from a 
that can have the tank shredding. If you remove the active from 
you can give it two upgrades, one that allows the use of the active for additional burst and another that increases the % damage the cleaving does and gives lifesteal. Does that sound like a good idea? Because those items are kind of overloaded at this point.
Okay, my question about the lifesteal/spellvamp disparity is this: Why is it okay for an adc to walk up to a creep wave and be healed from 10% hp to full, but it's a crime for a mage to do the same thing?
Seriously tho, even as vlad with SV, gunblade, and wota, he won't go from 10% to full with just one creep wave. And let's not forget, most mages are gated by mana and cd's if they want to heal up, while adc's just have to pop a few aa's and they're good.
If anything, would it be okay to change the 1/3 effectivess on aoe spells to 1/2 effectiveness?
I'm surprised that and 
isn't even on that list.
Those 2 items were there for hybrids champions from s1 but no one even builds them now.
no longer goes for since 
got buffed and over the course of time 
, 
no longer goes for Gunblade.
The only champion that even uses Gunblade is 
, which is too niche imo. Seeing that in the past has been balance around this item in mind multiple times, this makes her too reliant on the item to function as a champ.
I feel like is only being kept in the game for the sake of , especially the way how her passive works, but then again there is poor itemization to even make use of it.
Feral is there any discussion of any sort about the state of hybrid itemization or the existence of and in general?.
So there is something i have actually been wondering about BF sword and needlessly large rod. I had made a post in the past with regard to the severe snowballing these items can cause very early in a game that makes it feel extremely one sided, and how difficult it is to merit saving for one late game when gold starts to become more difficult to come by.
Would it ever be considered to have these items become a tier 2 items in that they get upgraded from pickaxe and blasting wand. If this were done I would think it would make building items more rewarding as you dont have to feel like you need to sit on your gold until you can pick up that big ticket component.
It would also reduce some of the overwhelming snowballing that occurs when an opponent comes back to lane with a BFS or NLR. Rather than feeling like there is no way to compete until you can afford one yourself, there would be the option to pickup its lesser component so it doesnt feel like you brought a knife to a gun fight.
Build component ideas:
With regards to the Executioner's calling/GW discussion:
In general, I really wish Grievous Wounds felt worthwhile as a consideration at champ select. It's both too rare as an effect in champion kit (existing on what, 4 champions?), and too prevalent in the form of Ignite. I'd love to be able to look at a team with 
, 
, and 
, and think "Yeah, MF would go good against this because of impure shots." But someone on your team is going to have ignite anyway. Maybe two, or even 3 of you. The healing reduction is too guaranteed to make the champions that have it naively shine, and with so few champions that can apply it without Ignite/EC/Morello's, other metagame considerations almost always trump it as a factor.
is weird because sustain has always been the name of the game in top lane. Given that sustain loses to burst, which loses to poke, which loses to sustain, and most top lane champions are naturally tanky enough to survive burst, sustain becomes the default. EC used to feel good on a non-sustain champion because it gave you the stat that you lost to, and also reduced theirs. It also helped that the meta included much more in the way of healing supports rather than shield stacking.
I always considered that it should be a niche item. Crit+Lifesteal+grevious wounds were stats that aren't really optimal on most naturally sustaining top lane champions. If you're Renekton, Nasus, Warwick, or Lee Sin, the lifesteal + GW is overkill, and if you're relying on crit and AD, you're probably trolling anyway. For a bruiser that sustains naturally, would old EC really still be the right item to spend on your one offensive slot? I fell like the numbers can be tuned such that it's an effective niche item without becoming must-pick.
Well...at least Grevious wounds is a topic that is long overdue to be discussed in detail (and there have been some more in depth discussions already like http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1267537, respectively here: http://www.reignofgaming.net/blogs/hashinshin/24954-why-healing-deficiencies-suck-and-why-they-need-to).
THe TL/DR of the discussion would be: it´s a toxic mechanic for the game right now, as it leads to situations when champs that heavily relay on self heal are either slightly broken without GW around - or too weak if GW is applied.
Another topic I would like to see addressed eventually would be Crit. It´s just an unnecessary random-factor right now, sth. any real esports should try to avoid as much as possible - as it ultimately leads to situations that are decided by luck and not by playerskill.
Just to Quote myself from another thread (http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1479775&page=11) with an example:
There´s just not a single Thing that would change mechanical wise if you would just replace %crit with %aa-dmg apart from the early to mid-game rnd-factor.
For crit now statistically just works like a %aa-dmg amplifier on the long run and offers no scaling with abilities whatsoever besides very few like gps q - and even those abilities would just work out with the %dmg amplify.
To give a clear example: right now if you rush IE and we assume you have 1.0 AS and 150Ad to make math easy dps comes down to: 1.0150(1,25(critchance=200%dmg)+(total value[everything on the leftside of the plus]1,5critchance (IE-Faktor))=257,8125dps - which will show over 10000autoattacks to be true, and it would be the same value if we would just adjust the formula into %aa-dmg instead of crit (25%bonus-aa dmg+an 1,5factor amplifying this with IE). However, right now thw worst case szenario for this Build for 3autoattacks is: 0crits=450dmg (~42%chance, depending on how random the rng is designed) while the best case szenario would be 3crits=1125dmg (1,56%change, again depending) This is a difference of 675dmg within 3 autoattacks that do not depend on anything the player does, just on the rnd of the game!
For the %dmg alternative it would come down to just 1case: 150ad1,25+(total value1,5*0,25(aa-amplifying-factor/IE)=257,8125dmg per hit. So for 3hits you would always get ~773dmg in total. No difference in any situation
What about Gunblade and Rageblade? Gunblade seems to only be bought on Akali now (it used to be a staple on Kat as well but not anymore, those now worthless AD ratios) and Rageblade I honestly haven't seen since Season 2, not even on Kayle.
Part of the problem imo is that Riot has neglected hybrid builds. Xypherous in particular seems to actively dislike hybrid builds and items which is a fair opinion to have but it leaves the 2 hybrid items and those few champs who have hybrid scaling in an awkward position.
I'm just curious what, if anything will be done with the items, champs with hybrid scaling (Akali, Jax, Kat, etc) and the concept of AD/AP hybridization in general.
/edit
As I think of it is there any work going into spellvamp? Lifesteal is such a mandatory stat on AD (probably in part because it's too powerful but that's another talk) yet seeing spellvamp is such a rarity unless you're playing a champion with natural spellvamp. I wonder if part of that is how heavily it's penalized on AoE/DoT spells. granted best case scenario is decent with that so perhaps AoE/DoT spellvamp needs to be redone so you get less spellvamp from each additional target or something.
mhhh i love runaans hurricane just a little tweak its useful for split pushing on ranged champs
Some ideas for :
What about removing the stacking mechanic and the attack speed and making it a new MR tank item like this?
Wit's End (2400g):
420 health
42 MR
Unique passive: Basic attacks deal 42 bonus magic damage and reduce the target's magic resistance by 24 on hit.
Runaans needs a little bit better build path, thats the only one I have a problem with.
FeralPony;
In regards to the 'invisible power' of Abyssal Scepter, have you considered changing its passive aura to an AoE active? It might make for an interesting counterpart to Deathfire Grasp; creating a lower-number but broader-impact active versus DFG's single-target assassin-burst type.
Links to something that I thought was really cool: Intro One Two Three
Crystalline Flask. I haven't seen it since the price was increased, which isn't necessarily a bad thing (I know that on the whole sustain is treated like evil), but perhaps something could be done to help it? (Maybe lowering cost to 300?)
This happens a lot less often now than it did before; but I still find every so often that in top I have a Rejuvenation Bead and I need more defense, but can't afford to sell the Bead for a Cloth Armor-- Especially against somebody like Yasuo when I'm building Mundo; so possibly could Doran's Shield build out of Rejuvenation Bead?
This is probably far too specific; but would an item granting an effect like "Any on-hit or on-attack Magic Damage that you deal may Critically Strike (including Champion Passives, e.g. Clockwork Windup, Vorpal Spikes, Toxic Shot, Unseen Threat)" be possible?
Items for: AD, Armor, and Mana sustain (perhaps.. Glacial Shroud + Phage?), AP, Armor, and Mana sustain (2x Amp Tome + Glacial Shroud?), an AD/MR/Mana (Pickaxe + Forbidden Idol; 30 AD, 11 Mana/5, 10% CDR)
A simple nerf to last whisper won't solve any issues because the armor values in game are tuned with the expectation that last whisper will be used. Making it purely a % of bonus based model will shrink the effective health difference between tanks and squishies, which after the fallout will simply amount to squishies being a tad tankier, something that the likes of marksmen currently aren't balanced around. You can see how much of an influence barrier and heal have on how effective marksmen are-- now increase their durability by about 25% and you'd get an idea of how swapping last whisper to purely bonus pen would affect the game.
I know you are claiming that the game doesn't really need any flat pen and you'd probably like to remove it at some point, but I disagree.
We need 2 types of penetrations. We need something I can buy at the store-- a multiplier-- that will be most effective against squishy targets, and we need a separate one that will be most effective versus tanky targets.
The idea that flat damage provides a greater increase versus squishy targets than tanky targets is great but it falters mathematically, because the difference isn't great enough even if a % bonus model were applied, because the innate armor values of champions has crawled up and up and now its too high. We had a global armor boost with the removal of dodge, and now we have +4 more in patch 4.5 AND we have tons more options for armor than we did a long time ago. Armor is just too commonplace, and that may be due to the fact that physical damage is just too high.
If innate armor could be low enough that "flat damage provides a greater increase versus squishy targets than tanky targets" would work, it would also create snowballing issues. In particular in games where you are able to get a lead to build raw damage and abuse that damage BEFORE the enemy can build a sufficient amount of armor on their tanks. There would also be issues about what happens when you happen to be ahead as a squishy and you buy one single armor item and now the enemy damage output onto you is trashy, since there is no flat pen option and you do not have enough bonus armor as of yet to make last whisper appealing.
Breaking up armor penetration into a choice between hitting squishies harder or hitting tanks harder is a good thing because it doesn't overload any statistics, provides one lever for one job, and makes the jobs of future live balancers that much easier.
If it were up to me I'd remove armor pen runes, then consolidate flat armor penetration into one or two key items. I'd put a ramping system or some condition based system on it similar to black cleaver in order to provide the squishies with some gameplay other than "get bursted and can't react". I wouldn't copy black cleaver btw, because by the time you apply the stacks they should be dead anyway, leaving the item feeling lackluster. I'd probably tie it to a positional model, where bad positioning on the enemy team can amplify your flat shred.
And then I'd make last whisper bonus based rather than total based, and I'd change it so that flat pen is applied instead of percent pen if it is greater, otherwise percent is applied-- that way you aren't roped into building both end game.
Now building penetration is still something you want to do at some point in the game, but WHICH penetration you build is a choice. You could build percent pen for melting tanks, you could build flat pen for massacring squishies, but if you build both you will pay an item slot cost for having both and they will NOT amplify eachother-- you are NOT encouraged to sacrifice 2 item slots to what is otherwise quite a boring mechanism that only amplifies damage.
I prefer items that offer gameplay or at the very least an actual choice. Reworking pen this way provides a real actual choice with real tangible costs. It still isn't idea though, because its just as mandatory as boots are for the DPS classes, and that isn't something I really agree should be a thing.
I've seen some great ideas regarding turning 
in to a jungle tank item where armor or health are converted in to +monster damage. Not sure about balancing and all but it could be a concept to think about.
Another I've seen is making a weaker item (but still thematically similar) and giving it a more powerful final tier. Possibly something that has health (they had suggested building it with 
). I think this should really be considered as I am definitely in favor of any item that gives health and attack speed.
I know there was an issue with 
having Spellvamp for AD champs but I'd like to have it reconsidered. I'm 90% sure you can remove things like health to make it more efficient for AD casters than Bruisers or Tanks. I say this because exists and Spellvamp Quints also exists but Spellvamp on an AD caster is not inherently overpowered.
I have very radical opinions about . I don't personally like the crit and I think it should build in to an item that is more interested in countering 
etc.
Also, 
is up for discussion but not 
? :(
